Heretofore, as a means for supplying powder which easily scatters in the air, into a powder receiving apparatus, a powder is contained in the container and the open portion thereof, from which the powder is to be taken out, is sealed with a film sealer has been used. Upon supplying the powder, turn the above-mentioned powder container upside down and, thus to fix the mouth to the applying portion of the powder receiving apparatus, and the powder is supplied into a hopper of the powder receiving apparatus. Such powder container as mentioned above has been used more popularly, than containers, in which the opening mouth portion is sealed with a lid, because structure of the opening portion can be made simple, and sealing can be performed more thoroughly.
In electrostatic image-forming apparatuses, an electrostatic latent image formed on rotating electrostatic charge carrier is developed using a developing unit and after toner particles present in a developer are made attached to the electrostatic latent image portion, thus to form a toner image, this is transferred and then fixed on a recording paper. Since the above-mentioned powdery toner is consumed with development, it is necessary to supply the toner to the development unit according to consumption and as a reservoir portion for supplying toner, a toner hopper is provided.
Large quantity of toner is stored in the toner hopper and, before this is used up, the toner is supplied from the toner cartridge to the above-mentioned toner hopper.
The above-mentioned represents a toner supply in an electrostatic recording apparatus using so-called a dry two-component developer, and similar toner supply is also necessary concerning electrostatic image-forming apparatus using so-called a one component developer.
In either case of the above-mentioned developers, supply of toner is carried out by putting toner from a toner cartridge, in which toner is stored, into the toner hopper.
In the toner supplying, since the above-mentioned powdery toner can easily scatter and float outside into the air from the open portion in the toner cartridge or in the toner hopper so as to contaminate the apparatus, the air or clothes, lots of proposals have been made in order to avoid these problems.
Among these proposals, for example, there are toner cartridges proposed in Japanese Utility Model O.P.I. Publication No. 59-114572/1984 and Japanese patent O.P.I. Publication No. 3-279983(1991). This toner cartridge comprises a container body, a fixed cap which corks up the upper portion of the container body, a mouthpiece portion which connects to the bottom portion of the container body, a film sealing member, which allows the opening at the bottom of the container body to peel apart and a slidable lid which is capable of being slidably engaged with the above-mentioned mouth piece while winding up said film realing member.
The toner cartridge is mounted on the developer receiving device of an electrostatic image forming apparatus such as copying machines, and then, a slidable lid is moved to a direction. Next, a sealing member of a supplying port is pulled to open the supplying part, and the toner drops from the supplying part, so as to supply the toner into the toner hopper.
Function required to the toner cartridge in itself is to store toner to be filled up inside. It is an important element for the toner storing to prevent a damage of the toner cartridge during transportation.
As for materials which have conventionally been used in the art for this purpose, for example, resins such as polystyrene(PS), styrene-butadiene (ABS), etc. can be mentioned. Further, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) have also been employed.
Among the above-mentioned resins, resins such as polystyrene and styrene-butadiene, etc., do not have sufficient resistance to impact such as falling impact, and, when the cartridge is broken, an accident that toner contained in the cartridge is leaked out of the cartridge and scattered into the air generates. Moreover, these resins can hardly be re-generated. Further although those resins such as polyethylene or polypropylene, which have heretofore been generally used, re-generation is possible, they are inferior in fabrication adaptability and, especially, due to its poor melt flow property, they were not suitable for blow molding process.
The present invention has been made for the purpose of solving the above-mentioned problem and the object of the present invention is, accordingly, to provide a toner cartridge which has excellent durability, good resistance to impact by dropping, excellent adaptability to resin mold processing and excellent regeneration property.